


Worker's Compensation

by ladysisyphus



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-04
Updated: 2008-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:03:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An investigation doesn't go as planned, but when do they ever? (AU I guess, casefic kind of, sex-pollen-ish to my deep and abiding shame.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worker's Compensation

They're not expecting anyone to be here, of course. The apartment was leased only in the name of Yamada Haruna, recently deceased, and all the family she left behind still living hours away to the north. Knocking is still a reasonable precaution, though, if only for appearances' sake, should anyone pass them in the hall. So it's no surprise that there's no answer when they do -- but Tsuzuki has only just reached out to force entry through the door when it swings open suddenly from within.

That _is_ a surprise, enough that they're both a little too taken aback to say anything at first. The young man who stands in the gap, looking between them from slightly puffy eyes, finally has to prompt, "Can I help you?"

Tsuzuki gets his balance back first, and clears his throat: time to swing into action with a subtle, ingenious cover story of airtight plausibility. "Yes, we're ... investigators." He thinks about that one for a second, then adds, " _Murder_ investigators."

Hisoka keeps his sigh on the inside only by virtue of distraction. There's something wrong here. Yamada-san's file didn't mention a boyfriend, but that's not it; he could easily be a recent addition, slipped by under the radar as he stayed with her for a while before her death. It takes him a weirdly long moment to put his finger on it... and then he does, and it startles him into an even longer frowning silence, keeping him from even trying to correct for Tsuzuki's ridiculousness. He _had_ been taken by surprise. That's it. He hadn't had any clue there was anyone coming to the door -- not footsteps, which many things could account for, but also not _empathically_ , which _nothing_ he can think of could account for. His senses are still working, of course; Tsuzuki he can feel right there next to him, as loud as ever, splashing around all the bright mental colors of his surprise and his worry over disturbing a bereaved man. But even now, with the young man standing right in front of them, Hisoka can't feel him. It's like there's no one there.

The man, however, seems to accept Tsuzuki's lame camouflage without comment, which at least is a bit of luck. "Yes, please, come in." He steps away from the door and gestures inside, sounding about as tired as he looks. He's good-looking: tall, lanky, his face trim and foxish, if lined with a scrim of dark stubble -- no doubt he's had a hard couple of days. "I'm sorry, I didn't know there was going to be _more_ police involvement." They follow him in, and Hisoka resolves to set the problem aside; it's not like he can mention it to Tsuzuki in the man's presence, after all. He's bound to leave them alone for a moment eventually, and it can wait until then. Still, he'd better keep his eyes open. Something in the apartment, possibly? Something about the man himself?

"That's all right," Hisoka says, standing aside for the two of them inside. "Thank you..." He trails off, leaving space for a name.

"Tanaka Jirou," the boyfriend introduces himself. And that almost seems weird too -- a little _too_ nondescript. Like a pseudonym. Hisoka tries to shake off the feeling, and can't. Is he just being paranoid, just creeping himself out?

Tsuzuki, at least, doesn't seem to have noticed anything, but it's hard to say how much _that_ counts for. Already he's assumed a practiced (and not half bad, honestly) expression of Concerned Police Officer. "Tanaka-san, how well did you know Yamada-san?"

Tanaka smiles, small and wan and bitter. "Not too well, I guess you'd say. We worked in the same office, but not near each other. We'd only been dating a month or so when she..." He breaks off, looks away, and swallows -- and Hisoka has no way of telling if his grief is genuine or not. It's more maddening than he might have cared to admit. "I guess I shouldn't be here. I've just been staying since... I can't believe she's gone." He looks up at them -- at Tsuzuki, mostly -- almost pleadingly. "Is it really possible she might have been murdered? The police were telling me it must have been natural, but..."

And Tsuzuki just takes the grief at face value, like he takes everything, and steps closer to Tanaka. "It's what we're here to find out," he says, with all the reassuring depths those eyes can hold. Very earnestly, too, and then Hisoka can feel something from him he'd rather _not_ have felt: a quick plucked-string thrum of attraction. "We don't want to alarm you. It may be nothing, we just want to make sure."

Tanaka nods, smiling weakly at Tsuzuki, and something in Hisoka makes him want to grab Tsuzuki's arm, to pull him back and away from the other man. He still has no idea, but it's just an instinct, as gut-deep and unreasoning as a fear of heights. He tries, fleetingly, to project something -- _something's wrong, can't you feel it? I think it's_ him _, I don't think he's what he says he is, something's_ wrong -- but of course he can't make physical contact, and he can't concentrate that well. It's really bothering him, being blindfolded like this, but... he thinks there's something else, too. Something else about all of this. He just doesn't feel right.

"I'll tell you as much as I can," Tanaka says, and gestures toward chairs in the apartment's small main room, turning into the kitchen nook himself. "Can I get you anything?"

"We're fine," Tsuzuki assures him, speaking for both of them without even thinking about it. "Thank you for your kindness." He looks like he's about to take a step after Tanaka for a second -- and then catches himself, walking over to one of the chairs and sitting down. And Hisoka finds himself following, too, without even really meaning to. He doesn't _want_ to stay, but he can't just call the whole thing off, either. Not when he doesn't know for sure.

It feels weird in here. Hot.

"Are you sure?" Tanaka asks from the kitchen, and when they both demur, returns and sits down on a chair between the two they've selected. Hisoka watches him, and finds his eyes fixing on that stubble on the side of Tanaka's face: how rough it looks, but it still suits him. And that thrum from Tsuzuki is still there, needling at him, letting him know that he's not the only one watching. He might not be able to feel anything from Tanaka, but he can sure as hell feel something from _Tsuzuki_ \-- and he doesn't like it at all.

"So what do you want to know?" Tanaka says. Once he's taken his seat between them, his demeanor seems to have changed just slightly -- subtly, not at any one point Hisoka could put his finger on, just some evolution in the way he carries himself. He seems... less grieved, somehow. Calmer. Steady. His eyes are still reddish, but suddenly Hisoka doesn't think he's been crying at all. It _is_ hot in here. Is the thermostat up too high?

Hisoka shifts in his seat, waiting for Tsuzuki to answer, but Tsuzuki doesn't; he seems lost in thought, transfixed by something about Tanaka's unobtrusively handsome face. Finally Hisoka gives up and intervenes: "Did you notice anything strange, before Yamada-san's death?"

"Strange?" Tanaka leans forward, uncrossing his legs. He's... an attractive man. Hisoka finds his mouth dry, and swallows. "What do you mean?"

"Like..." He swallows again, trying not to make it noticeable. "Odd changes in her behavior. Anyone new in her life, maybe a stranger."

...Yes, a stranger. Or an outsider. Or a new boyfriend, say.

It occurs to him, as though from a great distance, that they should get out of here. His instincts are right; everything about this is wrong. But the revelation seems somehow unimportant, unrelated to anything that's happening, like realizing that he forgot to sweep the floor the day before. It's hot, and so hard to think. He closes his eyes, trying to collect himself.

Tanaka drums his fingers on the arm of the chair, the sound traveling to him as though through syrup. "I can't think of anything, no. She was very quiet, kept to herself. We probably never would have met had it not been for work."

When Hisoka opens his eyes again, the first thing he sees is Tsuzuki: sitting in his own chair in an almost lazy sprawl, his knees spread, but his face transfixed. Almost slack. He looks like he's hanging on every word from Tanaka's mouth, and not even bothering to listen to it -- and Tanaka, in turn, only has eyes for Tsuzuki. And of all the useless bizarre things, a nasty finger of jealousy prods its way into Hisoka's chest, down into his stomach, making it twist. _Would you look at me when I'm talking to you?_ rises to his lips, and he chokes it back down with an effort.

"If you don't mind my asking," he pushes on instead, "where were you when she... when it happened?"

A warm, lazy smile seems to be spreading across Tanaka's mouth. It's so out of place, and everything so strange and soupy and incoherent, that Hisoka's mind will barely credit it -- but there it is, all the same, seeming to raise the temperature by degrees. "We were fucking, actually," he says. Which is also hard for Hisoka to imagine that he really heard. Tanaka's voice has somehow, when he wasn't paying attention, made a complete transformation: from rough with mourning to a low, warm purr, as ragged-smooth as velvet and as compelling to touch. "All the way deep in her, her thighs up around my waist, all slicked up for me. She was so quiet most of the time, but after a while she liked to just dig her fingers in my back and _beg_ for it. And such a pretty voice, like a little bird." His impossible smile grows, fractionally. "All the while the bed going _creak, creak, creak,_ so loud I always thought the neighbors would complain. But they never do, you know? I think deep down they like it too much." He pauses, as if to think. "And then... well, she was just gone." He lets out a small sigh, soft and somehow wet. "It was very traumatic. I don't think I'll ever recover."

Hisoka struggles for long seconds, the heat and shock and confusion sucking at him like mud. "What?" he manages at last. It comes out sounding small and tired -- like a child's voice.

Tanaka sighs again, his eyes still resting on Tsuzuki. "Does it really matter, Kurosaki-san?" he asks.

The silence hangs heavy for several seconds, as Hisoka works to break it. "We never told you our names," he says at last, faintly. There's no particular accusation in it: only a statement of fact.

"Oh, dear. Are you sure?" The tiny, warm smile is back, and Tanaka couldn't sound less concerned. He smiles at Tsuzuki, sidelong, as though they were sharing a private joke... and Tsuzuki, Hisoka sees, returns it, as though nothing out of the ordinary were occuring, as though everything is fine. "I guess I'm just a good guesser."

Hisoka struggles again to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It feels thick, and heavy with spit, a too-full suitcase to be lugged around. The apartment is hot, cloyingly hot, not unpleasantly hot. Instead he just feels drowsy, and content, and, and _horny_. He wants a softer word for it, a more dignified word, but that's the only one that really fits the condition. He's _horny_ , all his ordinary thoughts drowned under a senseless spike of sexual energy. It's no real wonder he couldn't quite recognize it for so long; for all that he's been trapped at the peak of puberty forever, it's not a condition he's used to finding himself in, at least not so suddenly, so _randomly_.

"Tsuzuki," he says finally, when he can, enunciating as clearly as he can with his overloaded tongue. Trying to find his urgency, his adrenaline, where they've been buried in the want that's drowning him -- like swords in wet sand. "I think we have everything we need here, don't you?"

"Oh, stay a while longer," Tanaka purrs. He holds out his hand in front of him, and Tsuzuki stands up, startling Hisoka with the movement. The look on Tsuzuki's face isn't quite a smile, not exactly, but the calm little twist in the lips of someone _extremely_ turned on and faced with the promise of getting off. On _Tsuzuki's_ face, _god_ , it's --

Hisoka's eyes have gone half-lidded, he can barely use his _normal_ senses at this point, he feels druggy and lazy with arousal. It occurs to him -- again as though about algebra or the price of tea or something else that couldn't matter less to his clamoring, needy body -- that what he feels from Tanaka goes deeper than a simple nonpresence, empathically speaking. It's a _vacuum_ , a hungry absence; it feels as though it's sucking at the emotions all around it, drawing them in with its emptiness. Something that feeds on emotions. And he's thinking about the case: the four women dead before their times around the same part of the city, found with their bodies simply withered and exhausted. And about his training -- learning about succubi and incubi. Empathic monsters, the chief said (like him, nobody said), building up their victims' lust and then consuming it, until the victim's death. Then moving on. Eating other women and men.

Damn it, he needs to move, and he can't, but what's worse, he doesn't _want_ to.

But Tsuzuki can, apparently, and he does; he comes to where Tanaka sits, wavering on his feet a little, looking enrapt and flushed and bright-eyed and a thousand miles away. Tanaka curls his hand around Tsuzuki's, bringing it to his own mouth, and Tsuzuki's eyes slit down to just slivers of color, his head tilting back until his hair is a soft fall. Hisoka can feel the surge of heat in Tsuzuki's body from across the room -- and then feel the sensation stripped from him almost as soon as it reaches his nerves.

Tanaka smiles, brushing Tsuzuki's fingers over his cheek. _Now_ he'll look at Hisoka -- through half-lidded eyes, turning his smirk away from the straining rise in Tsuzuki's suit pants, just a few inches form his lips. "I always forget how easy boys are," he says, conversationally. "With women you have to finesse, you have to _seduce_ them. A man, you grab his cock and you're done." He murmurs a soft laugh through closed lips, pressed to Tsuzuki's fingers. "It's actually sort of boring. There's no challenge."

A fresh burst of jealousy pierces Hisoka -- jealous _hunger_ , yes, but that sulky anger still underscores it. _Stop it, don't touch him, don't talk about him like that --_ It actually clears his head a little, jarring a discordant scratch across his own haze of lust. "Well, you've had no trouble finding women to keep you busy," he says, with an effort. His voice sounds soupy, but at least he finds it still his own. "You left a trail a mile wide. Are you stupid, or just arrogant?"

Tanaka's smile widens into a grin, and he laughs, running his free hand under Tsuzuki's coat and over his hip. Tsuzuki moans, softly but clearly, shuddering on his feet, and Hisoka has to struggle to pry his eyes away. " _You_ didn't know," Tanaka says. "And you won't tell anyone else, because I'm going to fuck you both to death right here." He pauses for a moment, and rests his mouth against Tsuzuki's hand, appearing to breathe in the scent of his skin; there's no reason at all for that to be as sexy as it is. "Well, all right, to even _more_ death in your cases. Shinigami, huh?" The sidelong curve of his grin has become scandalous. "It's been a while. You'll last for _months_."

Tsuzuki makes a soft sound as Tanaka's lips play over his hand, unmistakable in its wordless, whimpering plea. Hisoka struggles not to moan. His arousal is enough to contend with; the addition of Tsuzuki's -- for as long as it lasts before vanishing into this black hole, anyway -- knocks things up to unbearable. He _can't_ , he can't do this, this is too much, too strong --

But he's never been satisfied with _can't_ , not his whole life, and now isn't the time to start. Hisoka grits his teeth, digs his fingers into the arms of the chair... and, with an effort of will so great it feels like it'll tear something out of him, manages to stagger his slow way up to his feet.

" _Tsuzuki,_ " he says, more loudly, and with a touch of desperation.

And Tsuzuki turns his head -- back toward him, enough that Hisoka can see the faint, bewildered frown finally troubling his brow. "...Hisoka?" he says, in a small, thick murmur, his lips barely moving. For that instant he sounds more than aroused, terribly more: he sounds fragile and confused and almost forlorn. Lost in the dark, feeling along the walls. That, too, helps take the edge off Hisoka's stupid artificial need for a second. At least enough that he can _think_ , a little.

But the advantage is gone the second Tanaka cups Tsuzuki's clothed cock in his hand, squeezing him gently through his pants. Tsuzuki _does_ moan, thick and wet and with the lost little furrow in his brow twisting into a simpler one of _want_. Tanaka is smiling, and if there's a bit of an edge on it, well, it's impossible to pay attention to him when _Tsuzuki_ looks like _that_. Like someone falling apart in the grip of an interior fire, and Hisoka reels, clinging to the chair and to his gathered shreds of reason, trying to hold together. No, he can do this, he can still --

Tanaka releases the front of Tsuzuki's pants, drawing back to pull him in by both hands. Tsuzuki answers all of this with a weak close-lipped whine, but goes to him, letting Tanaka pull himself up by his grip. On his feet, Tanaka reels Tsuzuki in close again, and although he definitely wasn't taller than Tsuzuki when the two of them first came to the apartment, he just as definitely is now. His mouth laps at Tsuzuki's ear, and he pulls Tsuzuki in by his waist to rub them together in a serpentine twist, which makes Hisoka's knees buckle and thus interrupts his first heroic effort to push off from the chair and stagger toward them, to somehow separate them. Or maybe just join them; it's hard to say which impulse would take over in the end. So he can see the edge of the smirk forming on Tanaka's lips around the side of Tsuzuki's head, and the incubus's eyes cutting to his feeble efforts -- but not in time to stop what's coming.

"Why don't you go to your friend now?" Tanaka murmurs in Tsuzuki's ear: pitched low, just for him. His tiny smirk ghosts over the line of Tsuzuki's throat, and then he's taking Tsuzuki's shoulders in his hands, turning him gently. "He's wanted you since the minute he saw you."

 _Oh, fuck me,_ some part of Hisoka is still able to think. And then he could almost laugh. Well, _yes_.

Tsuzuki nods, his eyes mostly closed, a man in a dream. Tanaka pushes him gently, and he goes: on a slow but inexorable vector to Hisoka, his eyes half-lidded, mouth slightly parted, erection visible against the fabric of his suitpants, looking somewhere between a horror movie zombie and the perfect storm of sex. The fusion of the two somehow works much better than Hisoka might have imagined. And at its end, which seems to somehow both take a thousand years and come so quickly Hisoka never had time to move, Tsuzuki -- who's never more than twice _touched_ Hisoka without permission, who if he were himself would be inconsolable for days if he thought he had somehow violated either Hisoka's trust or his boundaries or both -- wraps his arms around Hisoka's waist and presses a wet open mouth down to his throat. As if they did this every day; as if Hisoka had begged him on his knees. He doesn't even hesitate.

Hisoka hisses breath through his teeth and finally lets it out on that moan, doomed instantly less by his sensitive throat than by how much he _wants_ this. _Wants_ this, yes, of course he does, probably always has, funny how it takes an incubus and having your mind poisoned sometimes to just deal with the simple and obvious truth. He melts into Tsuzuki's body, his arms helpless not to curl around him, his own jutting cock pressing hard into Tsuzuki's thigh. It's not the sensation itself but the explosion of heat in _Tsuzuki's_ mind, at feeling Hisoka's erection, feeling it grind up against him -- _that's_ what makes Hisoka actually cry out, small but delirious, digging his fingers into Tsuzuki's back. Oh god, they are dead; he knows it and he can't even care. It's over already. He can't fight this.

Just a few feet away, he is dimly, dimly aware, Tanaka is smiling, watching with his arms crossed. "You're an _empath_ , aren't you?" he says, as Tsuzuki's running his hands down Hisoka's sides and hips and rear, as though looking out a window and saying _oh, I guess it's raining_ : stating the obvious he'd still been too preoccupied to notice. "Oh, you'll be good. I love sensitives, you're so... rich."

But he's barely listening. It doesn't matter, none of it matters. He's lost. Tsuzuki's mouth finds his and kisses it, soft and insatiable, and he kisses back more greedily than he knew he could. His hands answer Tsuzuki's, running all over his torso, up his chest and down his sides, touching everything he can touch. Maybe, maybe he could handle this if it weren't really Tsuzuki, if he were just out for the count and Tanaka pulling the strings of his empty body, but it _is_ , and that's what's killing him. Tsuzuki, full-on, everything he wants and likes, poisoned and hijacked and honest and bright and the volume turned up to an ear-shattering level. He'd have to hack off his leg to get out of this trap. Or hack off something more vital, probably.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki murmurs against Hisoka's jaw, suddenly, startling him, rubbing his cock against Hisoka's hip. Tsuzuki, every humiliating accidental daydream, every clamped-down sidelong thought, dragged all at once out of the three or four locked doors and out to writhe in the light of day. Tsuzuki, wrapped around him, all he can touch or think, his voice breaking on Hisoka's throat. "Hisoka, _please_..."

There's only one chance left. It swims to him like a ghost out of the dim red fog around his mind. Only one thing he can possibly do, and he _has_ to do it before this really happens, before things pass the point where they can no longer be stopped. By the time somebody gets off it'll already be too late. He knows that as well as he knows anything, and even now, even stranded like this, he thinks he knows _how_. He just doesn't know _if_.

He runs his hands down Tsuzuki's sides, over his belly, over his hips, and back up; his own body is practically screaming with the need to touch Tsuzuki's hard-on, to _clamp_ on it, to get each other off in a frenzy until they're as spent as the unfortunate Yamada-san. But he only presses one of his hands between their bodies, sliding it down Tsuzuki's stomach again, feeling the arching spasming shudder of Tsuzuki's body against it. He doesn't even hesitate at the waistband of Tsuzuki's pants; he just keeps going, past the line of the suit jacket, to settle his palm firmly on the thick stony rise of Tsuzuki's cock. His own gasp is so loud it's the only one he can hear. He hisses his breaths as Tsuzuki bucks against him, pressing his face into the side of Tsuzuki's neck, his breath hot and blowing across the tender sweat-sticky skin. Clinging to thought only by the edges of his fingernails, but no help for it. Got to keep him distracted. No way to tell how much Tanaka can see through him.

Because his other hand, all the while, strays out to the side again, moving down Tsuzuki's body outside his coat in what could easily be an accident: it's trembling and needy enough to convince, at least. Straying into Tsuzuki's coat pocket could also be an accident, or some last little playful flirt, except there isn't much point in flirting when you're already groping the shape of someone's dick through his pants. But he knows the stack of fuda for what it is, and what the character painted on the second one down is: PURIFY.

And after summoning all his strength, all the shreds of his resistance, and thinking a quick dizzy prayer for this to work or they'll be _completely_ screwed and pun not even intended, he seizes the slip of paper between his fingers and whips it up and into the bare side of Tsuzuki's neck, far too fast for anyone to catch.

The spell _breaks_ : its shattered pieces tear out of Tsuzuki's body like shrapnel. Hisoka staggers in his supporting arms with the strength of Tsuzuki's pain, bursting through the closed gates of his arousal in a roaring red flood. The anger only comes afterward, filling in the jagged spaces, but as it dials all the way up to rage Hisoka can vaguely, numbly feel the nuance that says most of it is on _his_ behalf -- most of it that Tsuzuki should have been made to break his partner's trust.

Of course, once one very willing white tiger god has been summoned practically in Tanaka's startled face, the fine distinctions may not matter so much.

Which, in spite of Byakko's assuming the proper scale, is something of a tempest in a teapot in this little apartment; considering past adventures on Tsuzuki's part, he's probably lucky just not to destroy the whole building. Even if he did, though, Hisoka probably wouldn't have noticed. He just slumps into Tsuzuki all through the light and noise, clinging and panting, all of his energy for doing anything else burned up in that one deceptively small act of resistance. Tsuzuki, for that matter, is leaning hard right back on him, struggling for his own breath, which is finally able to wind a thin, dim thread of worry into Hisoka's slowly clearing head. Summoning doesn't normally take that much out of him. They both must already have been drained more than he'd noticed.

That's not the only reason, though. If he'd half-hoped that Byakko's wrath would immediately make all the effects of the incubus vanish, there appears to be no such luck. Which just figures.

Eventually, he's half-aware, both the incubus's screams (the eater doesn't care for being eaten, it seems like) and the tiger-related chaos subside. Once it's quiet again, someone can be heard pounding on the adjoining wall of one of the neighboring apartments for a few seconds afterward, before giving up in apparent satisfaction. Which would be pretty funny, under other circumstances. Byakko returns to Tsuzuki's side, a looming wall of mottled white in the periphery of Hisoka's vision, and noses him over for a moment to make sure he's all right. There's some murmured talk between the two of them Hisoka barely registers as existing, never mind hearing it.

Finally Byakko returns to his own world, apparently satisfied. And there they still stand, clutching at each other, breathing hard, just recently keyed up to the near breaking point of lust. Hisoka's vague thought that he should stand away from Tsuzuki, at least far enough that his erection isn't such an unignorable fact, produces at once from his body the mute, physical version of a wail of protest. _No,_ no _, I was so_ close _\--_

He feels the complications beginning to creep into Tsuzuki's blank exhaustion well before he's really conscious of feeling them. Thin, distinct threads first, then diffusing to change the color of everything around them, like syrup in milk: arousal struggling its way back, then shame, then sudden blossoming _horror_. "...I'm so sorry," he whispers, when tension has fully dawned over weariness in his mental sky. His fingers dig a little into Hisoka's back.

"Nn?" Hisoka's voice is mushed into Tsuzuki's chest, and still a little druggy -- just barely, but he does his best to clear both it and his head. His proximity to Tsuzuki, who's now throbbing a whole spectrum of urgent colors into his head, doesn't help matters. "It's... it's okay."

"I'm so sorry," Tsuzuki repeats, and the waves of guilt break worse -- but Tsuzuki doesn't let go either, he's aware, not just yet.

"It's not your fault," Hisoka says, almost sleepily. "Don't be stupid." He stays where he is for a long moment, responding to Tsuzuki's desire as much as his own. And then finally -- with great, _great_ struggle and hardship, hell, it's almost harder than making himself use the fuda on Tsuzuki in the first place -- tugs away. He stands back from Tsuzuki, and suddenly has no idea where to look. "...Um."

A terrible silence reigns. Both of them, Hisoka's fairly certain, are studying the littered floor like they're going to be tested on it later, fighting identical battles to breathe and to calm down just a tiny sliver, just enough to make this _bearable_ \-- although of course he doesn't dare even glance up to make sure. Right now he's not positive that either of them is going to be able to make eye contact ever again.

"...So," Tsuzuki says finally, clearing his throat. His voice sounds raw and uneven, sort of wildly casual. "Incubus."

"Yeah," Hisoka says, and is not exactly surprised to find he sounds much the same way. "Uh. ...well, at least it was quick."

"Yeah. ...Yeah." Tsuzki coughs, and peripherally Hisoka can see him straightening his tie, as though that'll help somehow. Finally, helpless, he adds: "Wanna get out of here?"

Get out of here, yes. Get out, go home -- separately -- get to work on spending at least the next four hours jerking off... yeah, sure, it's a reasonable suggestion. But the devastating thing, the insurmountable thing, is feeling exactly the same basic plan coming from _Tsuzuki_ \-- is _knowing_ , without even space for doubt, that they're both in exactly the same state and are dying to do something about it, knowing that they both know it about each other, and doing this separately suddenly seems so _stupid_ , so pointless and artificial, so...

Hisoka makes himself stop, then makes himself swallow. His mouth still seems too full of spit.

"Yeah," he says when he can, nearly in a croak. "We probably should."

Tsuzuki nods -- and then his arousal is washed under momentarily by another wave of guilt. "...I'm really sorry," he says again, as he turns his back, heading for the door. _Now_ Hisoka can look at him, and sees his shoulders are hunched, his head down. For a second he stretches out his hand -- and then jerks to a halt, his comical expression of horror mercifully unseen behind Tsuzuki's back. Touching Tsuzuki right now would be the _worst_ idea he's ever had, distress or no. "I didn't... I mean, I shouldn't have..."

"Tsuzuki, it's okay," he says instead. He's a little surprised to hear the touch of amusement in his own voice; but then, it's maybe the only thing that could convince Tsuzuki at this point that it is, actually, okay, and he can already feel Tsuzuki respond. "Really. It..." Well, no, not _it happens_ , it _doesn't_ happen, that's the whole point. "It wasn't your fault," he ends up repeating instead.

"I should have _noticed_ ," Tsuzuki says, still without looking at him, as he opens the door. But he already sounds better: less like guilt, more like kicking himself. For whatever it's worth. Hisoka shrugs, trying to feel like this is a lot more like normal, and not really succeeding. Possibly it has something to do with how in following Tsuzuki he can't really walk because he's still too painfully, stonily hard, and how his voice is still husky and dry.

"So should I. Don't worry about it." Of course, he _did_ notice, and in so doing probably saved both of them, but no need to rub that in, is there? Distracted, he reaches for the door a second too early, before Tsuzuki's hand has quite vacated it, and jerks back from the potential touch as though from fire. He can't very well miss Tsuzuki's flash of hurt -- but before he can even begin to respond, Tsuzuki's already covered it over, solving the problem by waving Hisoka through first with a wobbly lopsided smile. And what could he even do about it? What could he possibly say, short of, _look, it's not that I don't want to touch you, it's that I really, really do, in fact it's kind of all I can think about doing right now and I don't even know how to deal with that_? His memory throws him back the already unreal sensation of pressing his palm to the hard rise in Tsuzuki's slacks, and his eyes flutter closed for one involuntary second as he's passing Tsuzuki on his way out of the room, too close to his body not to be too aware of it, too raw not to prickle up his skin as though they're both electrified. ...This isn't _safe_. They've got to get out of here; every second they spend together like this swings them closer to some precarious, foolhardy edge.

And what about whenever Tsuzuki gets around to thinking back to what the demon said to him, about Hisoka? About how clearly true it was, for a minute there? God, he just wants to stop thinking, to shut it all up in rubbing himself up against Tsuzuki like an animal. It's jarring and a little scary and he wants it all the same; wants it like he'd want water or food or sleep. A physical fact he can't ignore forever, can hopefully ignore long enough.

Mercifully the hallway is empty, and he slips out into it and heads for the stairwell, not waiting. Tsuzuki follows a few steps behind, trudging along, not saying much. It's almost funny when Hisoka realizes he can feel him trying _not_ to think, probably for Hisoka's own benefit, but he doesn't know how to tell him it's okay. Maybe because it isn't. They fall into step eventually, carefully not touching, not that they touch that much anyway but now it has to be careful, and Hisoka's body feels too big and too _there_ , clumsy and undeniable, the elephant sitting in the middle of the living room. He can tell Tsuzuki feels something like it, too, if less consciously. He stops when they get to the door to the stairwell, and Tsuzuki stops too, and Hisoka makes an awkward half-hearted 'go ahead' gesture, feeling stupid and half-crazy and wanting to _scream_ with the frustration of it, with how _long_ everything seems to be taking, with how easy it would be to do the hardest thing or the other way around, and he both wants to be out of here right now and to not go anywhere at all.

Passing him and through the door, Tsuzuki actually bumps off the wall in his effort not to even brush his sleeve against Hisoka's arm; it's hard to say how they've both decided at once that touching each other is the boundary line, the uncrossable border, but somehow they have. He catches the door and holds it open, staring at the ground, and Hisoka sees for a second how flushed his face is and then looks away fast, wishing like hell he hadn't. He makes a break for it, rushing to get by, and misses the fact that there's a little step down between the hallway and the landing of the stairwell, and then the inevitable worst happens: he stumbles, and bumps into Tsuzuki.

Barely anything -- just his shoulder into Tsuzuki's chest, a stupid accident of the universe. But they've set the rules already between them, and it's enough. Right now, it's _more_ than enough.

He inhales audibly, and winces knowing they both heard it. The surge in empathy is like a firework, bright and searing his mental sky, and he can't help it. He just sort of freezes. He's exquisitely conscious of Tsuzuki, of Tsuzuki finally _looking_ at him, _staring_ at him: eyes boring away at the side of his face, naked hunger like the sun on his skin. He can't move.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki says, barely more than a breath. Through clenched teeth, Hisoka can hear.

He doesn't move, doesn't look at him. _Can't._

"Yes," he says at last in a kind of furious undertone, his whole face flushed and body crampingly tense, an affirmative to a question no one asked. No one had to. He almost wants to try to talk it out, somehow, to say some fragment of what's hurricaning through his head, say _he was telling the truth, it's really all right because I wanted to, I guess I've wanted to for a really long time, and I don't know if this is really what you want or just about what just happened and I don't think I even care right now, but I might later, and I know we should probably just go but I don't want to,_ but all that will come out of his mouth is the same thing over and over. "Yes, yes, all right, _yes_ \-- "

It's all he has to say anyway. Before he can so much as blink Tsuzuki's on his knees, Tsuzuki's grabbed his hips and pushed him stumbling to the wall with alarming strength and shaking hands. "Yes," he gasps back, but his fingers are already through the few defenses of Hisoka's jeans, already drawing Hisoka's cock out of his underwear; before Hisoka has time to think _he can't possibly be_ , Tsuzuki _is_.

"Oh _fuck_ ," Hisoka chokes, the words ripped out of him by shock, in something half a snarl and half a sob. He claws at Tsuzuki's head and ends up with fistfuls of his hair, clinging, breathing through his clenched teeth in a series of whining uphill-train puffs. His face twists, and if it looks almost like pain, it almost is. It's _way_ too much, terrifying, huge, too much to stand, and he only doesn't run the hell away from it because he _needs_ it _right now_ , needs to ride this killer wave even if it should tear the guts right out of him.

Tsuzuki sucks his cock deep and fast, storming him, like a soft hot slick vise around him, like wet darkness, like nothing Hisoka actually has a metaphor for. Tsuzuki's mouth feels like _Tsuzuki's mouth_ ; who the hell cares what else? Drowned, he barely even notices when Tsuzuki's free hand drops to the front of his pants, wrangling his graceless way in to jerk himself off furiously, but the added sensation -- Tsuzuki's answered need spiking crazily into his own -- bursts in on him like painful light. It's more than Hisoka can _stand_ ; he growls, practically shouts, and clutches at Tsuzuki's head tighter than ever, straining his hips unthinkingly into his waiting willing mouth. With his head thrown back and tendons standing out in his neck, he slaps his wrist to his mouth and just bites into it, hard. And he comes like that, a shaking steel sculpture, screaming into his own muffling skin.

Tsuzuki's orgasm, seconds later, translates itself into a searing aftershock in Hisoka's own body, one that flings him past intense and into the neighborhood of excruciating. His eyes water with the force of it, seeping past eyelids so tightly clenched he's seeing stars explode behind them. It takes him what feels like hours to stop jutting and shaking, to settle back to an exhausted tremble, with Tsuzuki's mouth still taking occasional dazed laps at his tender cock. All his muscles seem to need a minute to remember where they belong. He falls back against the wall of the stairwell again, panting, for a few seconds.

Then his eyes snap open -- dark and blurry until they remember how to see -- and he drops to the floor in front of Tsuzuki, grabbing two fistfuls of his shirt and shoving him rudely to the floor. His mouth latches onto Tsuzuki's and won't let go. He doesn't know quite what he was expecting, but something in his hindbrain still roars with satisfaction when Tsuzuki grabs him right back, kissing him harder and sloppier until their mouths are an endless wet tangle, tasting of sweat and come and heat and just plain Tsuzuki. When he shoves his knee between Tsuzuki's legs, though, pressing it against Tsuzuki's (already re-hardening) cock, he makes Tsuzuki groan, and that's even _better_ , so much better that Hisoka can't do anything but do it again. One good thing about shinigami, at least, and especially about Tsuzuki -- that fast healing time makes a _lot_ of things easier. He grinds down against the damp patch in Tsuzuki's pants, letting out a small breathless moan of his own, and bites at Tsuzuki's lips and sucks his tongue, feeling frantic and half-insane and like a stranger to himself. Or maybe just a self he's never met before.

Eventually, Tsuzuki does manage to break out of the kiss, and crane his head up slightly from the concrete floor. A punch-drunk, inane little smile is trying to claim his mouth, his voice backed with almost no breath at all. "...Wanna go ... somewhere?"

And _No,_ Hisoka actually finds himself opening his mouth to say. It's definitely not the right answer, not even the true answer to be honest, and this isn't the place for this at all, but he just, he...

"Wait," he mutters, his breath fast and hot on Tsuzuki's neck and collarbones, "wait, just -- " and he stalks down the length of Tsuzuki's body on his hands like an ungainly big cat. Fumbling with the fly of Tsuzuki's pants makes him snarl in frustration, even more like some sort of predator, and he ends up tearing it open so hard he rips a seam. Then he's just buried his face in the open V of fabric, and pulls Tsuzuki's half-hard cock into his mouth, sucking it imperiously back toward full hardness. He has no idea what he's doing and couldn't care less. Tsuzuki lets out a hard, high, voiced breath, his eyes squeezing suddenly shut, and his head thumps back to the ground.

Full hardness turns out not to be long in coming in the _slightest_. Hisoka nearly chokes a little on the increased pressure in his mouth, readjusts to make sure his teeth aren't anywhere they shouldn't be, and gets himself back together fairly quickly. He's never really thought about doing this -- at least, not any thoughts specifically about himself on the giving end -- and might have assumed that he'd find it gross, but right now it seems like the best idea in the world, and doing it until Tsuzuki comes and then swallowing also sounds like the best idea in the world, even better than the first. Right now he doesn't want to think how much he'd give up just for a little bit of Tsuzuki inside him. His head swims with Tsuzuki's resurging arousal, and he moans around Tsuzuki's cock, grinding himself restlessly against the floor.

A door clunks open in the stairwell somewhere on a floor below them. Presumably the one to the street; it brings with it faint sounds of traffic and car horns, which fade again when it closes. Hisoka flinches a little at the sound, and he can hear Tsuzuki's breath catch, but he just keeps going, introducing some tongue to his procedures now that he feels he's got a good grip on the basics. They're on the fourth floor, about halfway through the building, and so there's about an even chance the person entering is heading for a floor below where they are. Right now, though, Hisoka honestly could not care less if he or she is headed right here, and walks directly in on them. He's entirely wrapped up in what he's doing. Nothing will stop him.

And anyway, whether it's the increased danger or just incredibly timely coincidence, that's when Tsuzuki's trembling tension bursts suddenly into a stretching, arching writhe -- and he comes, _hard_ , digging his fingers into the floor and his breath a fast staccato rasp but otherwise making no noise. And when he does, for that matter, so does _Hisoka_ ; he stiffens above him and muffles a long, hard moan in Tsuzuki's cock, shuddering brokenly with the force, the _suddenness_ of it. He keeps sucking Tsuzuki, though, keeping his presence of mind only because _he_ needs it, too.

When it's done he does, in fact, swallow. The footsteps below them, rising toward them, do so only briefly; then another door opens and shuts below, and they're gone. A second later, Hisoka collapses bonelessly across Tsuzuki's legs. He's not sure he'll ever be able to move again.

Tsuzuki closes his eyes and swallows, after a few quiet reeling moments. "...I," he begins, then lets the sentence trail off unfinished, practically unstarted. He can feel Tsuzuki's exhaustion, too -- and then out of it, _way_ too quickly, the sudden red throb of new arousal, already riding its way back on his pulse. It's really only then that Hisoka realizes just how hard they've both been hit. He's already following, already feeling a dull heat in his face and groin answer Tsuzuki's, and that's... shinigami powers aside, that's not _normal_.

He swallows, and finally makes himself drag himself up off Tsuzuki, and as an afterthought refasten his jeans. "We should, ah... probably get out of here," he says. At least for now, though, he's almost managing to be sort of relaxed, finding the zen at the heart of complete insanity: he hears himself sounding sheepish, the last few words breaking on a breathy sound not unlike a laugh. Tsuzuki echoes it, running fingers through the hopeless mess of his hair

"I think that's my line," he says, pulling himself to his feet in an ungainly fumble. "...Or, uh, it was _before_ , um." He flushes again, a little, and Hisoka's attempt to stand up is waylaid by his choking slightly. He recovers as gracefully as possible, which isn't very.

He thinks he'd do anything right now to avoid having to say _your place or mine?_ and just waits for Tsuzuki instead. Tsuzuki doesn't disappoint, either -- possibly as evidence of how much more experience he has with this sort of thing. He reaches for Hisoka once they're both standing, almost shyly, brushing Hisoka's hair (which is probably a pretty amazing mess of its own, for that matter) away from his eyes. The soft touch along his temple makes him shiver, leaves him with a brief but powerful urge to suck one of Tsuzuki's fingers into his mouth. Mercifully, it passes. ... He isn't really sure whether to hate Tanaka or not at this point. "...I think I live closer," Tsuzuki offers, in a soft, somehow intimate murmur.

Which makes Hisoka's cock twitch meaningfully in his unfortunately tight jeans, but to be honest, Tsuzuki saying something about flowering shrubs would probably do the same thing right now. "...Yeah, okay."

"Okay." Tsuzuki smiles, and lets his hand trace down Hisoka's cheek, down his arm -- and then at its end, it takes Hisoka's hand, twining their fingers. He's not even sure why that surprises him so much. "Come on," he says, still smiling, looking completely radiant and utterly like himself, and _this_ is more normal, except of course it isn't at all. "Unless you had other plans."

And somehow, Hisoka still manages a scowl. "Idiot," he mutters, and moves on ahead, and drags Tsuzuki along by his hand as though _that_ were normal too.

They let go quickly, though; any kind of contact still seems dangerous, and especially so while facing the prospect of a trip that will probably take half an hour at the absolute most, but right now seems to stretch out like a journey to the ends of the earth. Tsuzuki follows him out and down the stairwell anyway, out into the busy nighttime street. Hisoka tries to maintain his dignity as they weave through crowds to the subway station, resolving not to even be aware of the existence of anyone they happen to pass. He doesn't even want to think about what he looks like. He eventually has to fall behind to let Tsuzuki lead to the right line; he's never been to Tsuzuki's apartment before. ...This is all just so _weird_ , so surreal. He's sort of waiting to wake up as they board a car, and he finds himself looking at how completely mussed and flushed and obviously postcoital Tsuzuki looks and then having to look away again, biting his lip. This isn't going to happen _fast_ enough. He feels like he's going to lose it.

Tsuzuki looks at him sidelong as they're sitting down, and smiles, with a little bit of a ragged edge to it around the eyes. Hisoka finds himself going a little red again, and having to look at the floor to hide it. All these little snippets of fantasy keep sneaking up on him, images from nowhere of being on top of Tsuzuki, _in_ him, just having whatever he wants, maybe just right here in front of everybody if he can't wait -- and probably three out of every four aren't even his own, come to that. He sinks down in his seat with a hand half over his face, his legs carefully crossed, trying to look nonchalant. Dammit, this is totally not fair, _Tsuzuki_ doesn't get subjected to _his_ stray dirty thoughts.

After a while, the buildup is almost too much to stand; finally he grabs Tsuzuki's wrist between them as unobtrusively as possible, and squeezes his hand into a tight, repressive fist. He can't focus enough to project anything empathically, but there are other ways to say _calm_ down _, you're going to get me in trouble_ without words. Tsuzuki whimpers, but sighs and makes a palpable effort to pull himself together. It's almost sort of touching.

"Sorry," he whispers. "Can't help it. It's the next stop, anyway."

Hisoka nods, just barely, his hair brushing Tsuzuki's shoulder. After a moment he makes himself release again, going back to touching Tsuzuki as little as possible. Just safer that way. But he can't stop either of their brains, and he practically leaps to his feet to follow Tsuzuki at the next stop.

He barely remembers the rest of the trip later, and it's probably just as well. Somehow they make it from the subway to the apartment building, and inside and up the elevator. By this point they aren't really speaking or coming close to each other at all, but it doesn't seem as bad, either: anticipation has begun to replace desperation, with a slower, mellower, but possibly even hotter fire. He only really becomes aware of himself when they're blessedly, gloriously near the end: in the eventual hallway, at the door to Tsuzuki's actual apartment. And this is where Hisoka finally lets himself touch, snaking an arm around Tsuzuki's waist as he's unlocking the door and pressing his face between Tsuzuki's shoulderblades, breathing in the smells of leather and sweat and sex and Tsuzuki. It's not much, but Tsuzuki moans like he's sick with a fever, all weak and restless and struggling for air.

Somehow he manages to unlock the door and stumble inside, and he tangles his hands in Hisoka's shirt and drags him along behind, wheeling them both around the open door. He thrusts himself between it and Hisoka while he's swinging it shut, and when he yanks Hisoka in for a kiss it seems like it's been _years_. Hisoka's hands plant on either side of his shoulders, his face tilted up to Tsuzuki's, pinning him to the door with his body and Tsuzuki's mouth with his own. He shoves a knee between Tsuzuki's thighs, just because he can, just because they're both still bundles of raw nerves and he feels like he _needs_ to.

"Fuck, yes, please, _now_ ," Tsuzuki murmurs into Hisoka's mouth, shedding his jacket as best he can in the tight press of their bodies and his apartment door. " _Please_." His voice is shaky and raw. "Please, I need you in me, I need you to fuck me, I want you _so much_."

...well, that kills all of the annoying conscious thought right out of Hisoka's head. He moans rustily and shudders against Tsuzuki, his hands finding much better places to be than on the door, groping their way into warm crevasses of fabric and skin. "Yes," he pants, babbling, pulling back just enough to look at what he's doing, "yeah, I -- " -- and he's yanking at Tsuzuki's shirt with one hand, his pants with the other, trying to do everything at once. And Tsuzuki has much the same idea, and they get tangled in an mass of undressing, clothes and hands and arms everywhere, until Tsuzuki, while attempting to get his shoes off, takes a wrong step and takes them both crashing to the ground. And then he's _laughing_ , even in the midst of all this, and Hisoka sighing and rolling his eyes and fighting the twitching muscles of his mouth, Tsuzuki laughing and kissing him with both of them bruised on the floor, Tsuzuki kicking one of his shoes into the wall and the other under a potted plant. And really, if he'd ever let himself think about it all the way through, isn't this exactly what he would have imagined? Just _Tsuzuki_ ; just every bit, Tsuzuki.

Hisoka rolls on top of him again, pinning him to the floor this time, and now manages to at least figure out some order to things, first pulling Tsuzuki's tie loose and tossing it aside before attacking the buttons of his shirt. Tsuzuki grins and pulls Hisoka's shirt over his head in answer, still hiccuping laughter now and then just out of pleasure or nerves. "We should probably get to the bedroom," he says finally, grinning and sheepish and sweet, his fingers taking big greedy swipes across Hisoka's exposed back. "Bed's more comfortable than the floor. Usually."

"Mmmm." Which is about the best Hisoka can offer with his tongue caught between his teeth like that, helpless between Tsuzuki touching his bare skin and rapidly getting his hands on more of Tsuzuki's own. "Yeah, that's, that's probably a good -- " He interrupts himself, somehow, just needing to be kissing Tsuzuki again _right now_ for some reason. Tsuzuki kisses him back, though, so it's okay: thrusting his tongue into Hisoka's mouth in a slow wet piston, reaching for the fly of Hisoka's jeans.

"Want you so much," he murmurs. If he seemed a little more lucid there for a few seconds, it's gone now, and some vague distant part of Hisoka thinks it probably ought to be concerned about that sort of thing, but he can't quite seem to get it to be. All he can do is make a low, purring, keening sound, a sound of which he frankly has never imagined himself capable, and rubs himself against Tsuzuki, making them both moan. He yanks Tsuzuki's shirt down to his hands and then pulls it free from them and away from underneath him, with shaky hands, and goes for Tsuzuki's pants as well. Their wrists bump and tangle between them. Tsuzuki pushes Hisoka's pants off his hips without much trouble, his underwear without much more, and Hisoka wriggles against Tsuzuki's body to work them the rest of the way off and ends up gasping from the side benefits. Who was Tsuzuki kidding? They're never going to make it to the bedroom.

Not that he minds -- especially with so much of Tsuzuki open to him now to touch, to run his hands down and drink in both his skin and the arousal pouring off it. Tsuzuki moans, stretching and arching into his hands, and Hisoka can't imagine any better reason to keep touching him than how much Tsuzuki wants it, can't imagine any counterargument compelling enough to make him stop. He can only take a minute or so of just this, though, before he needs more, before he needs his mouth on Tsuzuki's skin. He follows his hands here and there with his tongue, swiping Tsuzuki's chest and belly. He probably would have blanched in horror at the thought that he might even have an action like this _in_ him twelve hours ago, but now he can't even stop to think about it. And Tsuzuki just whimpers deep in his throat, reaching for Hisoka's shoulders and pulling weakly at them. "Please, please," he manages, on every other breath, swallowing to try to firm his voice. He sounds broken and beautiful, begging with no shame at all. "Please..."

Somehow, Hisoka remembers to go back to shoving at Tsuzuki's pants, working them over and down. Tsuzuki lifts his hips and wriggles the rest of the way out, then wraps his legs around Hisoka's thighs, tossing his head to the side with eyes half-lidded and lips slightly open around his breath, his cock against Hisoka's inner hip like a hot stone. Hisoka falls back over him with his hands planted on the floor to either side of Tsuzuki's chest, his hair falling into his face, and he's flushed and hazy and breathing hard through parted lips, he must look _ridiculous_ and he doesn't even care. He rubs against Tsuzuki, their cocks sliding silkenly alongside each other, and makes a small hungry sound, and beyond that can't even quite think what happens next. Right now he can't even convince himself it matters.

In this too, though, Tsuzuki's there to save him. His larger, warm hand wraps both of their cocks, startling a moan out of Hisoka, closing his fingers around them and stroking them together as though they were one. "Good?" he asks, low enough Hisoka can barely hear him. At first the only answer Hisoka can give is a weak thrust into Tsuzuki's hand, making them bump and slide again; but finally he swallows and nods, his eyes slitted almost closed.

"Good." Tsuzuki echoes his own question as an answer. He moves his hand harder -- maybe harder than he should even, considering, but right now they're both past caring. They'll manage whatever this frenzy takes out of them. Hisoka strains, propped on his hands, pressing himself into Tsuzuki and up over him. His teeth catch in his lower lip for a second, and then he just barely opens his eyes, just enough to stare down at Tsuzuki greedily. Their eyes catch, and lock, and Tsuzuki is just faintly smiling up at him with wet parted lips, and rubbing them both in a steady building rhythm -- and only closes his eyes when he comes, arching up, a little glottal stop caught in his throat. There's barely time for Hisoka to hitch in breath before he comes too, a small cry escaping his lips as his hips buck with Tsuzuki's hand. His eyes slam shut too at the last second, and he pants and arches over Tsuzuki for a long moment more before collapsing down onto his chest.

The first thing he notices again after that is Tsuzuki shifting position, gently knocking Hisoka's thigh out of an awkward pinning position across his leg. The movement stirs wetness between them, their bellies slicking together in a way that probably should be unpleasant, but instead just manages to produce a small, valiant flutter in Hisoka's cock. Hisoka makes a small grunting noise in protest. His cock, he tries silently to explain to it, is eventually going to have to _cut that out_.

"Gnggh," he says, finally, rubbing his face into Tsuzuki's chest for lack of hands that work. His voice comes out deeply muffled. "Okay. Really. It'll be at _least_ forty-five seconds before I can do that again."

He can't see if Tsuzuki's smile has spread into a wicked little grin, but what he can feel gives him the distinct sense all the same. "...Bet I can make it thirty."

Which manages to make him shiver slightly, and does nothing to help matters all by itself. Instead of betting, which would surely be a fool's game, he lifts his head and presses a drowsy kiss to Tsuzuki's throat. "We... _should_ probably head for the bed."

"Okay," Tsuzuki agrees, drawing out his vowels in a slight singsong. He pauses a moment, then prods Hisoka's side. "You have to get up first, you know."

Hisoka scowls in new affrontedness, but with an effort pushes himself back, clambering up to his feet. He'd be self-conscious _now_ , but he's just too tired and relaxed and already working on aroused again. He just folds his arms over himself and waits for Tsuzuki to lead. Tsuzuki, after a spectacular yawn, bumbles his way up and just takes Hisoka's hand again, like that's just what he does now. Naked and mussed, come-covered and getting visibly hard again _already_ , he smiles at Hisoka, and yeah, it would have taken an idiot to take that bet. "Come on."

What else can he do? Hisoka takes his hand, following Tsuzuki back to the bedroom, to the bed. The lights are off in most of the rest of the apartment, the hour still earlier than it seems like it should be but definitely getting late. He still feels a little bit like he must be dreaming -- a really intense one of the kind where he has to do a lot of laundry after he wakes up.

"So, uh, yeah." Tsuzuki gestures around the dark room in the angle of light from the door, looking a little at a loss. "Here's the bedroom. You saw the living room, bathroom's over there, and... that's pretty much the tour." He wraps his arm around Hisoka's waist, startling him a little, pulling him toward the futon. "Oh yeah, and here's the bed."

He follows the nonverbal instruction, sitting down on the bed with his hands still stretched up to Tsuzuki's. "It's... a nice bed," he says, in the absence of anything else to say.

"It works," Tsuzuki says, and he smiles. His thumb strokes the inside of Hisoka's wrist, where nerves Hisoka hadn't even known about are coming to his attention. "...So, light on or off?" It's a ridiculous question that he somehow makes just something someone would _say_ , like asking if Hisoka takes tea with milk or lemon. Hisoka swallows, and tries to look away.

"I, uh... I don't know. ...Whatever you like, I guess." Oh, why did they have to start _talking_? This has to be the worst idea ever. There is _so_ much potential awkward hanging suspended over their heads right now, if they managed to knock it crashing down --

Tsuzuki doesn't seem worried, though; he just reaches for Hisoka's face, brushing his cheek, catching his attention back up to where Tsuzuki is a naked and gorgeous silhouette with the light behind him. "We can stop," he says after a moment, much softer, as frustratingly kind and concerned as ever, and Hisoka has to look away again. He really _means_ that, he can tell; if he said _yes_ , if he said _stop_ right now, Tsuzuki would let it go without a murmur, even after all of this. Of course he would. Who did he even think he was dealing with here? Even if it meant the rest of the night in the bathroom jerking off alone, even if it wasn't really what Hisoka _meant_ , if he asked, Tsuzuki'd still give him anything at all. He tries to resent it as patronizing, as coddling him, and just can't, either because of everything else that's happened or just because. It isn't, he knows it isn't. It's just Tsuzuki.

"No," Hisoka says, with enough feeling to really lay the concern at rest; he hopes not enough that it sounds like _no,_ please _no,_ even thought that's sort of what it is. He reaches for Tsuzuki again, cupping smaller hands around his hips. "...It doesn't matter what else, just come here."

"Okay, good." Tsuzuki leans in over him, folding arms around him, and then laughs on the long breath he lets out. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Finally Hisoka just gives up and pulls Tsuzuki into his lap, so Tsuzuki comes to rest kneeling on the bed, straddling his thighs. He runs his hands up Tsuzuki's back, and... this is easier, somehow. It's bizarre, but true. In a matter of hours, if that, groping has become an essential part of relating to Tsuzuki. This is really not how he was expecting to spend Thursday night. "This is good," he murmurs, close to Tsuzuki's lips, as close as he's going to come to saying any of that.

"This is _great_ ," Tsuzuki mumbles back, kissing at Hisoka's mouth. He rubs his cock against Hisoka's belly, arms around his waist... and something about the new position and the way Tsuzuki feels, the things he's thinking, comes together and clicks home. What he said before...

Hisoka makes a faint, low sound in his throat, helpless to keep from grinding up against Tsuzuki's thigh in a slow hungry twist. He swallows, but his voice still comes out dry in Tsuzuki's ear. "What do I need to do?"

"Nnh?" Tsuzuki only blinks up at him for a second, until all at once his eyes focus and it's his turn to look away. "Oh! Oh, no, I just -- " Tsuzuki coughs, his own voice catching. "We don't have to if you don't -- "

"I do," Hisoka says in his ear. "Tell me what to do."

Which cuts off all the rest of Tsuzuki's protest, all at once. And what's more, Hisoka finds, even more startlingly, he _does_. Tsuzuki was perfectly clear on the subject earlier, and the thought of being on the opposite end from what he might have expected makes him doubly hard all at once, with curiosity and anticipation. Hell, right now he'd probably be all right with it even if Tsuzuki did want to fuck him, let alone the other way around. Tsuzuki clears his throat at last, and takes a small, shaky breath.

"There's, um... in the drawer... here, I'll get it." He pulls away long enough to rummage in the small bedside table and produce a small plastic tube. "Hasn't been used in a while, but... I don't think it goes _bad_ or anything. Stops, stops being slippery, you know." His tiny laugh is fraying and jagged with nerves. Hisoka wouldn't even know, but he attempts not to let on.

He nods, not really trusting himself to speak, and accepts the lubricant, fighting against his jittery fingers to get the cap off. The hunger this thought is stirring up in Tsuzuki comes off him in waves, making it hard to breathe. He takes a palmful to his cock and slicks it, too drowsily wrapped up in the sensation to be especially self-conscious. Tsuzuki, meanwhile, leans back against the pillows, letting his knees fall wide enough that there can't be much doubt about... well, _anything_ ; it's dark, but Tsuzuki is still caught in the spreading triangle of light from the other room, a work of art in lit curves and shadows. Hisoka's eyes widen a little, and his hand tightens around his own cock and then pulls abruptly away, in such rapid succession that it's even pretty funny under _these_ circumstances. "Okay?" Tsuzuki asks, and Hisoka almost doesn't hear him.

"Fine," he says finally, in a voice that's half a croak. When he can move, he stretches out over Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki smiles, shifting his weight under him and reaching for Hisoka's cheek again.

"I mean, are _you_ okay?" Tsuzuki says, soft and warm, but Hisoka is so far beyond being touched by genuine concern right now. He nods impatiently, trying to arrange himself between Tsuzuki's knees.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm -- " He cuts himself off, hesitating, and then murmurs, "Okay..." under his breath, not a conclusion but a focusing mantra, leaning forward over Tsuzuki so he can guide his cock to Tsuzuki's ass. Tsuzuki lifts up his hips, his arms around Hisoka's shoulders for leverage, helping as much as he can while still getting in the way only a little. _Do it, please, please, I want it,_ he says, or maybe just thinks, it's so hard to tell now. Everything is so close. Hisoka just breathes, just presses forward, first meeting resistance and then passing through it, into something like a slick-sticky freefall. He has to hover for a few seconds, gasping hard, re-orienting himself in the world, and Tsuzuki's wanting breaks over him again in a warm wave. He shudders and cants his hips forward further, burying himself inside Tsuzuki, rising to meet his need.

Tsuzuki groans and opens his legs wider, pulling his knees up as hard as possible, clasping Hisoka in his thighs. " _Please,_ " Hisoka can almost hear him whisper, his breath heavy in his throat. "You feel so good, _so_ good."

He'd answer if he could, but he can't. All his breath, all his body and being, are wrapped up in moving where he is, sliding his way all the way inside Tsuzuki to be completely sheathed in him. He makes a faint, dusty, whispery sound, but that's all; his head lolls on his shoulders and his eyes flutter closed. Right now he thinks he could easily do this forever. There's no will, no capacity to resist in him -- Tsuzuki wants, and he responds, just like inhaling again after exhaling.

He's no sooner fully filled Tsuzuki than he's sliding back again, so he can press deep all over again, and then that's too slow, and he's doing it again, faster, trying for a rhythm. _God_ , Tsuzuki is beautiful, amazing, feels amazing, and he'd tell him all of this except he's completely busy with just trying to breathe and to fuck Tsuzuki all at the same time. The way Tsuzuki looks like this is, in fact, probably a good argument for leaving the light on -- something Hisoka can't do anything about right now, but some dim part of him can at least file it away for some other time. God, there might _be_ another time --

" _Please,_ " Tsuzuki whispers again. Hisoka can feel how painfully hard he is, how fast he'd come if he took even a second to jerk himself off -- and he doesn't, because that would end all this too fast. He wants _this_ now. Burning out from inside him, the shape of his want feels a little like forever: a circle of endless light.

Which is a little troubling, since Hisoka doesn't know how long _he's_ going to last. He clenches his teeth and digs his nails into the palm of his hand, just to give himself something to focus on, but he's still thrusting into Tsuzuki faster and faster all the while, unable to still his hips. With the lube and momentum he slides inside Tsuzuki with almost no effort at all, and he keeps teetering toward the edge and then scrambling to hold himself back. Grabbing at that infinity-shape in Tsuzuki's mind, again and again, seizing with sweaty wanting hands and missing, missing --

When Tsuzuki comes it storms both of them, spinning everything out of control, running them aground. His orgasm rips out of his exhausted body with a heat that feels almost like pain even to Hisoka -- but it stays just on pain's sweet side, towering like a flame, burning him out. He might cry out Hisoka's name somewhere in there, but if so Hisoka loses it as he follows in a torrent, the pleasure and desire spiking into the sudden twin of Tsuzuki's, ripping away all of his sense of self into nothing. After all this struggle to hold on, it takes him completely by surprise, startling him into a shout of his own, and he strains into Tsuzuki's body, burying wet heat inside him as his teeth click together in his head and his lean muscles stand out. He hovers shuddering for long seconds afterwards, panting voiced breaths that make his whole upper body shake, and then he's tumbling onto the bed beside Tsuzuki again, unable to move.

After what feels like approximately a hundred years, the first thing he becomes aware of again is that he is _disgusting_.

Groaning, he rolls to one side and swats at the squat little cabinet beside Tsuzuki's bed, until he manages to find the box of tissues by knocking it onto the floor. He tosses it back onto the bed between them and makes a long and clumsy effort at cleaning himself up, and eventually Tsuzuki can be moved to very drowsily do the same. When he's finally slightly mollified, he knocks the box back off again and rolls back into Tsuzuki, bulling his head under Tsuzuki's chin, sinking into warm arms around his shoulders. He can't remember ever in his _life_ having been so tired.

And this time he falls asleep without moving, without so much as changing the uncomfortable tilt of his head.

It's hard to say how long they sleep; he didn't catch a look at the clock before passing out, just knows it was deep city-dark in Tsuzuki's apartment and they'd first gone over to Yamada Haruna's apartment at about ten-thirty. The night doesn't seem to have been that long, and at the same time might well have been an eternity. Time is impossible to pin down.

He doesn't sleep deeply, in any case. It's like fever-sleep, thick with hot disjointed dreams, punctuated by instants of half-waking where he's disoriented and soaked in sweat and distressed about something he can't name, in the seconds before he slides down again. His body fighting out the poison like any other infection, he'll suppose later. At least twice he thinks what wakes him up is rubbing himself off against Tsuzuki, Tsuzuki grinding back against him and keening, both of them still halfway in some already-forgotten dream. None of it is quite pleasant -- too close for comfort, in some ways, to what it was like in the last year or so of his life, when his body was struggling to make its way through puberty even as it was dying. It's sort of a relief when the phone finally rings, jarring him up and out of his soupy subconscious as though it were water, and the sound a fishhook.

The phone's on the cabinet on his side too, and all Tsuzuki has to offer is a bleary whine. He gropes out, managing to fumble the receiver off and down to his ear after a couple of tries. "Hello?" he mumbles, barely.

" _Tsuzuki!_ " He winces a little, but also wakes up most of the rest of the way. It's _Chief Konoe_ ; even nearly shouting in agitation, he can recognize the voice in just one word. Especially that word. _Oh, hell, we never checked in --_ "Are you all right? What happened?"

He hauls himself up the pillows, halfway sitting up, ignoring Tsuzuki's equally blurry noise of inquiry. And pulls the sheet more firmly across his lap. He doesn't care if it's neurotic of him, there is something deeply wrong about talking on the phone to your boss while naked. " _Yes._ Ah. Yes, Chief, it's Kurosaki. But we're both all right. Everything's fine."

There's a brief hesitation on the other end of the line. He's aware that now Tsuzuki's awake, too, his eyes reflecting back the light in the dim like cats' eyes; he's propped himself up on his elbows, and now his hand strays onto Hisoka's belly. Hisoka catches it in his free hand, partly to hold it but mostly to keep it from causing trouble, whether on purpose or not. "I'm glad to hear it," the Chief says, a moment later, and it sounds like he's letting out a breath. "What happened?"

"Well." What a difficult question. He shoves hair out of his face, trying to think. "It was an incubus, sir," he says at last -- deciding that pointedly unelaborated honesty is probably the best policy. Tsuzuki's fingers twitch on his belly, but he doesn't even dare look. "That was responsible for the murders, that is. We, er, we found it unexpectedly, and destroyed it."

When the Chief finally speaks again, there's a faint note of something that is almost certainly knowing and quite possibly amusement, which Hisoka can't decide whether he's all right with at _all_. "...I _see_. But you're all right? Was either of you exposed?"

Hisoka clears his throat, but he's already chosen his course; there's nothing to do but see it through. Tsuzuki having come to drape over his shoulder and start nibbling at his collarbone, though, is definitely not helping him maintain his dignity. "Ah, yes, sir. Both of us. But not for very long, and we... seem to be recovering."

"Ah." The Chief sighs, and if there's still an edge of slightly horrified amusement on it, well, Hisoka just resolves to go temporarily selectively deaf. He pushes at Tsuzuki's head, trying to dissuade him, with no success at all. "Well. That's good." He pauses, and then adds, "Still, you should both probably take tomorrow off. ...The next two days, actually. Just to make sure you're fully rested."

He closes his eyes, only partly because of what Tsuzuki's tongue is doing at the base of his throat. "Thank you, sir. That's -- probably a good idea."

"I imagine." There's one more brief pause. "I appreciate your looking after Tsuzuki, Kurosaki-kun. Thank you again."

"You're welcome, sir," Hisoka says, trying to smooth over the slight high crack in the middle when Tsuzuki slides his hand down under the sheet. "It isn't easy, but I do the best I can." Tsuzuki clasps his cock, his fingers slightly sweaty and bed-warm, and Hisoka just gives up. "Good night, Chief."

"Good night, Chief," Tsuzuki adds from the side of Hisoka's neck, carrying perfectly to the phone. Hisoka can almost feel the Chief's expression mirroring his own.

"Actually, could I speak to him for a moment, Kurosaki-kun?" Konoe asks when he's recovered, and he at least sounds calm. Hisoka frowns, but doesn't hesitate long, for a variety of reasons.

"Of course. Here." He hands Tsuzuki the phone, only shrugging back to Tsuzuki's quizzical look. Finally Tsuzuki shrugs himself, and takes it.

"Hi, Chief. What is it?"

He listens for a second, and Hisoka rolls away from him, sprawling on his back -- but not too quickly to see the expression on Tsuzuki's face change, at whatever the Chief is saying. It doesn't quite sober, although his smile fades, so much as it just turns thoughtful. Still, suddenly, his eyes distant and turning inward.

"I think so," he says, after a long pause -- considerably longer than whatever Konoe had to say, from what Hisoka can hear. Or what he bothers to listen to; he's busy taking the new erection Tsuzuki has been teasing into his own hands, at least idly. Again, he couldn't even have _imagined_ himself doing such a thing at any other time, but by now, what would be the point of being shy? He's more than a little gratified to hear _Tsuzuki's_ breath shake and catch, although Tsuzuki pulls himself together quickly after turning away. "I mean, it's hard to be sure. But... well, I think so. I do." He listens for a second longer, and then answers with a faint laugh. "I know. It's all right. I probably would have too." He glances back over his shoulder at Hisoka briefly, through whatever follows this, and the look there is somewhere between smoky and sweet. It doesn't do much to slow down Hisoka's hand. "Thanks. ...Mm-hm, you too. Bye, Chief."

And then he has to lean across Hisoka to hang up the phone, and the conclusions that leads to are sort of inevitable.

Much later, sprawling over Tsuzuki's chest and pleasantly sticky again, Hisoka asks drowsily, "So what did he want to talk to you about?"

Tsuzuki hesitates, but only fractionally -- his hand stilling for the space of a breath on Hisoka's hair, before going back to combing through it. "He wanted to know if this is going to be okay," he says at last. Matter-of-factly; but of course Hisoka can feel every tiny tremor, down underneath. He pulls himself back up on his elbows, regarding Tsuzuki.

"Is it?" he asks, after another long moment. Trying to measure his own voice, since Tsuzuki can't see through him as easily. Tsuzuki looks away for a while, then back toward him.

"It's... usually not up to me."

He looks at Tsuzuki, frowning. Tsuzuki, it seems, will only look at him in quick glances, cutting his eyes back and then away again. "...You think it's not okay with me?"

Tsuzuki bites his lip. "I, um... I don't know?"

Hisoka stares at him a moment longer, and then finally rolls his eyes, flopping back down across Tsuzuki's chest. "Have you been paying _any_ attention?"

"Maybe?" Tsuzuki chews his lip. "...I guess not." But it looks like there's the start of a smile creeping back to his mouth, or at least to his voice, and honestly, that's all Hisoka needs. He just snorts, and then lifts his head again to look down into Tsuzuki's eyes.

"It's okay with me," he says, a moment later. Seriously, this time. Even setting everything else aside for the time being; it's the truth, at least, and everything else can wait. "Really. If it's okay with you."

Tsuzuki nods, just barely smiling up into his eyes. "Yeah," he says. "I mean... I think it is. Okay. You know?"

Hisoka nods back, and then just leans in to leave a placating kiss on his mouth. "Let's just go to sleep, okay? We can figure it out in the morning."

"Okay," Tsuzuki agrees.

...And then, maybe three minutes later, says brightly, "No, I can't sleep, I'm hard again."

Hisoka buries his face in Tsuzuki's shoulder, muffling his groan. Which is almost completely a bluff, considering the second Tsuzuki says it, he is too. "I'm not going to be able to _walk_ ever _again_ ," he says in a long muffled moan of protest, although without a lot of conviction. He can feel Tsuzuki's smile arrive at the side of his throat, his hands warm at the small of Hisoka's back.

"You'll be okay," he says. And like every time he does, Hisoka can almost believe it.


End file.
